Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Belton –
After two tense days of testimony, lawyers for the prosecution and
the defense could not reach agreement on how to instruct members of
the 4-man, 2-woman jury how to reach a verdict of innocence or guilt
based on their perceptions of evidence and testimony.

To
return a verdict against a veteran Master Sergeant accused of
carrying a loaded assault weapon “in a manner calculated to alarm,”
jurors must weigh the intent of the 22-year veteran of the Army when
he escorted his son on a Boy Scout hiking merit badge jaunt down a
country road.

Just
what conclusions they must reach to assess guilt or find him innocent
is a matter of negotiation between attorneys who turned every
question and answer into a disagreement over perceived discrepancies
between what the witnesses said in either direct testimony, or cross
examination, and what was written in official reports. The two sides
clashed repeatedly during the course of the case in chief as each
presented evidence and testimony in the misdemeanor disorderly
conduct case.

After
meeting in chambers for more than two hours, Judge Neel Richardson
told family and friends, witnesses and jurors, “We've gotten to a
point where, if I had a charge, I don't think it would be fair to
hand you the charge at this late hour.”

He and
the attorneys will spend the evening hammering out an agreed array of
findings, and jurors will go home for the evening, to return fresh at
9 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 16, he decided.

Minutes
earlier, prosecutors stipulated that the complaining witness, a
Children's Advocacy Center Program Director named Laura Wilkerson,
never mentioned being “alarmed” when she originally reported the
“odd” behavior of Sgt. C.J. Grisham on March 16, as he hiked west
with his son Christopher Jr. along the shoulder of State Hwy 36
before turning off on Prairie Hill Road near the Temple Airport, a
loaded AR-15 carried across his chest on a sling, and a 45 cal.
semiautomatic Kimber pistol in a concealment holster at his side.

It was
not until she arrived at the offices of the Temple Police Department
to meet with an investigator who took her statement that she followed
his suggestion and used the modifier he suggested to describe her
state of mind, prosecutors agreed. The word is “alarmed.”

Officer
Steve Ermis began the day's testimony under cross examination by
defense attorney Blue Rammefeld. He explained that during the course
of the investigation, he ventured the opinion on Facebook that he
could prove that Sgt. Grisham resisted arrest, or search and seizure,
a charge that was later amended to disorderly conduct by carrying a
firearm in a manner calclulated to alarm. He also said that he had
received death threats to himself, his wife and children from unnamed
parties who chose to voice their threats over social media.

It was
not the most comfortable of days for the Grisham family, who clashed
with security personnel in the lobby of the criminal courts building
over Sgt. Grisham's lapis lazuli pet rock. A deputy said its
possession is a security violation of the department's policy and
turned him around to back out in a rainy parking lot and put the item
in his car instead of bringing it into the courtroom for the day's
proceedings.

When the
defense called his son Christopher Jr. to testify about the
circumstances of his arrest, he was not allowed to finish answering
the first series of questions before the lead prosecutor halted his
testimony, asking “Did anyone tell you are under the rule?”

Nonplussed,
the young man asked in a vague tone of voice, “What does that mean,
sir?”

Under
the witness exclusionary rule, those who are scheduled to testify are
admonished at the beginning of a criminal trial to stay out of the
courtoom, to not discuss the facts of the case with spectators or
other participants, and to not be present when and such discussions
take place.

After
several faltering attempts to answer the man's questions, he finally
admitted that he listened to his mother and father discuss the case
at home.

When the
judge told him he could step down from the witness stand as the
attorneys held a side bench conference in hushed tones, he stood in
the middle of well of the courtroom, a stricken look on his face
before suddenly bursting into tears and running from the room,
followed by his mother, who also wept.

Following
another in camera conference regarding the matter, the judge emerged
from his chambers to say, “The spirit of the intent of what the
court meant was that people who were going to testify could not
discuss the case or be present when it was discusssed, and I don't
blame Chris, Jr. I blame his parents.”

He was
allowed to testify, and when he did, he concurred with what had been
depicted in multiple video clips that recounted the arrival of
Officer Steve Ermis, who asked Sgt. Grisham why he was carrying an
assault rifle strapped across his chest.

His
father indeed told the officer that he was doing so because he can,
and he told the rest of the story of the arrest and the confiscation
of the two firearms in much the same way other witnesses have.